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Word order typology

Word order typology. Holger Diessel University of Jena holger.diessel @uni-jena.de http://www.holger-diessel.de/. Basic word order. Japanese (1) Taro ga inu o mita Taro SUB dog OBJ saw ‘Taro saw the dog.’. SVO. Kinyarwanda (2) Umugore arasoma igitabo woman 3S-read book

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Word order typology

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  1. Word order typology Holger Diessel University of Jena holger.diessel@uni-jena.de http://www.holger-diessel.de/

  2. Basic word order Japanese (1) Taro ga inu o mita Taro SUB dog OBJ saw ‘Taro saw the dog.’ SVO Kinyarwanda (2) Umugore arasoma igitabo woman 3S-read book ‘The woman is reading a book.’ SVO VSO Welsh (3) lladdodd y ddraig y dyn killed the dragon the man ‘The dragon killed the man.’

  3. Basic word order Malagasay (4) Manasa lamba amin’ny savony ny lehilahy washes clothes with.the soap the man ‘The man washes clothes with the soap.’ VOS Hixkaryana (5) toto yahosiye kamara man it.grabbed.him jaguar ‘The jaguar grabbed the man.’ OVS OSV Urubú (6) pako xuā u’u banana John he.ate ‘John ate bananas.’

  4. Basic word order (1) Peter bought the blue book. SVO (2) *Bought Peter the blue book. VSO (3) *Bought the blue book Peter. VOS (4) *Peter the blue book bought. SOV (5) *The blue book Peter bought. OSV (6) The blue book, Peter bought. OSV (7) Never did Peter buy a book. ADV-AUX-SVO (8) Across the bridge lived an old man. ADV-VS

  5. Basic word order Ancient Greek (1) ho didaskal-ospaideuei to paidi-on SVO ART teacher-NOM teaches ART boy-ACC ‘The teacher instructs the boy.’ (2) ho didaskal-os to paidi-onpaideuei SOV (3) paideuei ho didaskal-os to paidi-on VSO (4) paideuei to paidi-on ho didaskal-os VOS (5) to paidi-on ho didaskal-ospaideuei OSV (6) to paidi-onpaideuei ho didaskal-os OVS

  6. Basic word order What determines the basic word order? • It is most frequent. • It is structurally and behaviourally unmarked. • It occurs in a pragmatically neutral context.

  7. Basic word order Walpiri (1) ngarraka-ngku ka wawirri panti-rni SOV man-ERG AUX kangaroo spear-NONPST ‘The man is spearing the kangaroo.’ (2) wawirri ka panti-rni ngarraka-ngk OVS (3) wawirri ka ngarraka-ngku panti-rni OSV (4) ngarraka-ngku ka panti-rni wawirri SVO (5) panti-rni ka wawirri ngarraka-ngku VOS (6) panti-rni ka ngarraka-ngku wawirri VSO

  8. Basic word order Walpiri (1) ngarraka-ngkuka wawirri panti-rni SOV man-ERG AUX kangaroo spear-NONPST ‘The man is spearing the kangaroo.’ (2) wawirri kapanti-rni ngarraka-ngk OVS (3) wawirri ka ngarraka-ngku panti-rni OSV (4) ngarraka-ngku kapanti-rni wawirri SVO (5) panti-rnika wawirri ngarraka-ngku VOS (6) panti-rnika ngarraka-ngku wawirri VSO -> Wackernagel’s law

  9. Basic word order Walpiri (1) wawirri kapirna panti-rni yalumpa kangoroo AUX spear-NONPST that ‘I will spear the kangaroo.’

  10. Basic word order (1) Peter kaufte das blaue Buch. SVO (2) Das blaue Buch kaufte Peter. OVS (3) *Kaufte Peter das blaue Buch. VSO (4) *Kaufte das blaue Buch Peter. VOS (5) *Das blaue Buch Peter kaufte. OSV (6) *Peter das blaue Buch kaufte. SOV (7) Gestern kaufte Peter das blaue Buch. ADV-VSO (8) Peter hat das blaue Buch gekauft. Satzklammer (9) Das blaue Buch hat Peter gekauft.

  11. Basic word order • Cross-linguistic distribution of basic word order: • SVO and SOV are by far the most common word orders. • VSO is moderately frequent. • All other word orders are rare.

  12. SOV (Dryer 2005)

  13. SVO languages (Dryer 2005)

  14. VSO languages (Dryer 2005)

  15. VOS languages (Dryer 2005)

  16. OVS languages (Dryer 2005)

  17. OSV languages (Dryer 2005)

  18. (Dryer 2005)

  19. Basic word order

  20. Basic word order

  21. Basic word order • The subject tends to precede the object (95%). • The object tends to occur next to the verb (91%).

  22. Basic word order

  23. Basic word order

  24. Basic word order

  25. Why does the subject tend to precede the object? Basic word order (Dryer 2005)

  26. Why does the subject tend to precede verb and object? The subject tends to be the topic. (1) Peter noticed that Sally wasn’t there. She had to attend a class in linguistics. Given/old information helps the hearer to interpret the rest of the utterance, i.e. it provides an orientation at the beginning of the clause. The subject can be seen as a grammaticalized topic.

  27. Why does the object tend to be adjacent to the verb? Basic word order (Dryer 2005)

  28. Why does the object tend to be adjacent to the verb? Verb and object form a tight conceptual unit. • (1) a. They are hunting a fox. • b. They are fox-hunting. • (2) a. I am taking care of my sister’s baby. • b. I am baby-sitting.

  29. Word order correlations Based on the ordering of verb and object, languages are commonly divided into two basic word order types: VO-languages and OV-languages. VO OV prepositional postpositional head-initial head-final right-branching left-branching Greenberg (1966) discovered that the ordering of verb and object correlates with the ordering of other elements in the clause.

  30. VO and OV languages (Dryer 2005)

  31. Prepositions vs. Postpositions (1) English Peter sawthe man [in the garden]. (2) Japanese John ga [Mary to] [kurma de] [kobe ni]it-ta John SU Mary with car by Kobe to go.PST ‘John went to Kobe by car with Mary.’

  32. VO and Adpositions (Dryer 2005)

  33. VO and Adpositions (Dryer 2005)

  34. OV and Adpositions (Dryer 2005)

  35. OV and Adpositions (Dryer 2005)

  36. Genitive-noun order (1) Meines Vaters Auto (2) Das Auto meines Vaters

  37. VO and Noun-Genitive (Dryer 2005)

  38. OV and Genitive-Noun (Dryer 2005)

  39. Word order correlations

  40. Word order correlations English is a VO (or right-branching) language, but: • it places the head after the dependent category in the Saxon genitive (e.g. Peter’s car) • it employs suffixes • it has at least one postposition (= ago)

  41. Noun-Relative clause order (1) English The man [I met].

  42. VO and Noun-Relative clause (Dryer 2005)

  43. Noun-Relative clause order (1) Japanese [Maria ga kai-ta] hon Maria SU write-PST book ‘The book that Mary wrote.’

  44. OV and Noun-Relative clause (Dryer 2005)

  45. Word order correlations If a language has basic VO order, the relative clause (almost) always follows the head noun.

  46. Word order correlations If a language has basic OV order, the genitive almost always precedes the head noun.

  47. Word order correlations If a language has basic VO order, the subordinator almost always occur at the beginning of the subordinate clause.

  48. Word order correlations If a language has basic VO order, it tends to employ prepositions, and if a language has basic OV order, it tends to employ postpositions.

  49. Word order correlations If a language has basic VO order, it tends to place auxiliaries before the main verb, and if a language has basic OV order, it tends to place auxiliaries after the main verb.

  50. Word order correlations If a language has basic VO order, it tends to place the article before the noun, and if it has OV order, it tends to place the article after the noun.

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